#but i just bought the vampire armand so i need to read that first

[cafedesvampiresx]

the interview with the vampire finale had me in tears

[travellingwiththedead]

IwtV s2e3 rewatch notes

Because once again everything is happening so much and I need to take notes xD

(spoilers for show and books behind the read more)

So Daniel is allowed to leave the penthouse, didn't seem like it before. Is this a test to see what he'll do?

My man your handwriting is as bad as mine xD

"Where is the coven now(maybe)??? Today? Cell phone, Google, CCTV. SAN FRANCISCO, Polynesean Mary. Playboy Magazine. Alice. They'll come for Lenora and Kate next. nee (use??) Lestat as a doorstop/CLAUDIA!. MARA'S CAB. COKE BETTY GRABLE. THIS TIME I WONT SAVE YOUR LIFE"

so, "Raglan James". Why that character? If it is him. I guess can't have Mr. Superior General running around spying on vampires in Dubai but...this guy? So if it it's really Raglan my guess is he's not really Talamasca any longer and he's spying on vampires because he's looking for one recless enough to do the thing. And he thinks Daniel is his best bet on getting the intel.

"You're not the first to attempt this, Mr. Molloy. I could give you the names of four others who have and they're all dead. Or undead." Yeah, that tends to happen when you lot tangle with the vampires xD

"How many Rashids, Rahid?" I guess poor Real Rashid can be glad Daniel's not calling him Renfield LOL

"They are peaceful beings"....who eat people. My dear Real Rashid, I don't think that word means what you think it means xD

Armand stop making heart eyes at Daniel (actually don't xD)

Blenders mention (also they're not trying to sell them to you, you little gremlin, because you already bought so many xD)

Still very much "Sure, Jan" about Armand's story about how he met Lestat. I mean, he's clearly telling it with the agenda of making himself look better, understandable. But also he's making Nicki out to be some little fling Lestat didn't care about and he hates Gabrielle so much he's not even mentioning her. Sure, Jan xD

But dang every one is acting their hearts out and they're all so fabulously good at it.

You know the one thing really in character for Lestat in Armand's story? Dragging around a whole ass crucifix to make a point xD

Armand's definition of unharmed is as bad as Rashid's definition of peaceful LOL

"You led him there so he could destroy it." Hit the nail right on the head. Armand wants to get rid of the Children of Darkness? Oh look, a vampire who doesn't obey the rules and can help him with that. He wants to get rid of the Theatre de Vampires? Oh, look, a Louis.....

Still so amusing how Lestat's hair in Armand's story is always on point and how it's mostly terrible when Louis hallucinates him xD

I'm guessing these be their laws in Latin, my Latin is rusty and I never was much good at it but

looks like "III. Nullus lamia vampiris debet scibere historiam" for example and google translate says that's "No one should know the history of vampires" so....

I still think the whole sexual assault thing with Claudia is unnecessary. Bad choice to do that, imho.

It's so heart breaking to see how much Claudia wants to belong with the Theatre coven. Vampires are still arseholes and always will be.

When's a door not a door? xD sorry, but that's basically my only thought about Armand's entry there.

Not Louis taking a picture to see if Lestat's actually there or not.

I feel like it's a bad idea to open a chat conversation with Daniel when the vampires can read his mind. Seems like a sure way to be found out....

Louis getting philosophical and Daniel just hammering at buttons because his computer is being taken over is funny, ok? xD

Those Talamaska files are interesting. "PC Members Extinct 1556-1949", "Armand (Arun Amadeo)".

Hm, I feel like talking loud enough for Sartre to be annoyed by it about killing people seems like it's breaking your laws a lot, Armand LOL

Also Dream Lestat is being a right bitch, it's hilarious.

Louis, darling, you're losing it, you need therapy

How about telling Claudia they're all on to you? Would be a good idea before she joins their coven, one would think...

Why is Santiago's last name Windsor? xD like no, he does not look like a Windsor. I thought he was one of the one name gang, like Madonna LOL

And the Talamasca just spoiled Daniel about what will happen to the Theatre, rude xD

Of course Armand would make it out to have been Santiago who demanded he take out Louis. Sure, Jan.

So fucking dramatic to take Louis into the sewers and threaten him and then actually do nothing at all to him.

Louis, you really should not be turned on by people who just said they should kill you, dear xD

Yeah, casting Claudia as the baby is not fucked up, at all....

EDIT: also apparently this Theatre coven doesn't wall people up, they put them in the morgue fridges xD (which usually are one big fridge inside instead of many little ones but I guess they'll not do that here....)

over all, very fun episode, and stellar performances from the whole cast but especially Assad and Jacob.

[plx-scribbles]

I don't remember when I first read Interview with the Vampire. But read it I did.

What I do know is that at that point I had no idea of Anne Rice's stance on fanfic - didn't really know about the existence of fanfic at all. For the record, I think her war on her fans was a very bad decision and a very - stupid one, and it's one that has hurt the books and lessened their cultural impact (probably), as well as hurting the fandom as a whole.

But yes. I read the book. And watched the Tom Cruise movie, too, at some juncture. (Parts of it I liked; the ending is still brilliant; other parts I very much didn't.) And then I went on with the series: I read The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief - and then my memories get patchy. Memnoch the Devil. Pandora. Merrick. Some other ones as well? (I did try Lasher as well but it's - just - no.) And then, there's one definite recollection: The Vampire Armand.

I wouldn't say I loved the books, but clearly there was something about them that made me come back for more. They're not exactly great literature. And no one in them was really likeable - or everyone was both horrible and monstrous and someone you couldn't help loving, a little - and it was a bit like watching a trainwreck (metaphorically) - you couldn't stop if you tried.

Except that after that last one I did.

There were so many things that are squicks for me. (Yes, I'm using that word deliberately.) So many things I didn't want to know about - things I'd still want to forget about reading, erase from my memories altogether.

I didn't want to know anything more, and so they sat on the shelf collecting dust.

These are all I have left, now. Armand I got rid of - very decidedly - in connection with a move.

But now. With the new tv series, and gifs and photos all over the place - and people talking about it, and everything it is -

It all came flooding back. Everything I hadn't thought about, for so many years. It's very strange to find that a part of your brain has held on to these characters, and everything about them that spoke to you in some way.

Armand was always my favourite character. I can say that now, can't I? I sympathise to a nearly alarming degree with him: the need for stability. For things to be under control. The seesawing back and forth with religion (also stemming from a craving for an underlying order for things - that doesn't exist). And what it's like to always be the one who others rely on, the one who's expected to carry on and be strong and not show the strain in any way. And the way people abuse that.

(And never being anyone's first choice.)

(Perhaps it's also like looking at those traits about myself I least like, seeing them writ large, blown up larger than life.)

All that mayhem and death and destruction and horror - everything I don't want to face?

This book, though, I also still have kept. I've never read it, and I'm very ashamed of that.

It was a gift, years ago, from someone I no longer am in contact with - I don't know why they disappeared, and stopped talking to me. It wasn't about this book, but I still should have read it because I got it from them.

I'm also ashamed because. It's signed. And I can't bring myself to read it.

(I'd so love to say that L, if you're reading this, - but I know you're not, so I won't.)

But those parts of Armand (being buried alive - the abuse -) keep coming back to me every time I think about reading it.

In the same way, all of it affects other things as well. I bought this notepad from a museum a year and a half back and can't bring myself to use it. And it took this long for me to realise why: the decoration is from Pompeii. There's that scene in The Queen of the Damned with Daniel and Armand - that's where they are, and that's what it reminds me of.

Still. After all these years.

And so. Now there's this thing. Do I watch it? (I don't have access to the second season yet.) And what then?

[graygiantess]

Thank you for In Hell Together After All, it absolutely crushed me (in a good, painful way). ❤️ It made me wonder what is your history with IWTV/The Vampire Chronicles: how did you become a fan, what caught your attention and what made you want to "stay"?

And also, you probably write a lot of your headcanons into your stories, but do you have any specific headcanons of any of the characters/relationships in the series?

Hey Nonny!

Sorry for the late reply. Covid broke my brain and I can only focus on reading/writing for very short stretches of time.

(I love getting these asks, though, so please no one feel deterred by this, lol!)

I'm so glad you enjoyed In Hell Together After All! And thank you for your ask. 😊

Putting my answer under the break again so as not to clog up people's dash with my novel-length ramblings.

Luce and TVC

I first got into TVC when I was 14, which is almost 21 years ago. My 13yo foster sister and I were completely obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

I was aware that there was a vampire movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and wanted to see it. I have a much older half-sister and the three of us ended up having a movie night at her house. We watched Interview With the Vampire and The Blair Witch Project.

We were all very 👁👁 throughout the entire movie. Then I bought a boxset of the first four books, foster sister and inhaled the first three books, watched the QotD movie and got very pissed off by how terrible it was. 😂

We were like, "Guess we'll always have the books 🤷‍♀️". I ordered TVA, because QotD had left me completely Armand-obsessed, and started reading Tale of the Body Thief.

I don't remember quite what it was, but Lestat says something at the start of TotBT that my 14yo self just thought was so stupidly retconny that I went, "Yeah, fuck that". I think it was something about how he only ate bad guys and that that was somehow in service of Jesus? Whatever it was, I wasn’t having it, so I put it down and never picked it back up. 😂

Then in my late teens/early twenties I followed Anne Rice on Facebook for a while, but I got kinda creeped out when she started addressing everyone with 'dearest People of the Page'. I distinctly remember thinking, "Lady, I'm here for gay vampire reasons, not to be in a cult". 😅 So I unfollowed her and spent about a decade not thinking about TVC very much at all.

AND THEN in early summer of 2022 the YouTube algorithm informed me that AMC was making an IWTV show. I reread IWTV and in October thought, "Let’s give this a go."

I had my reservations because I still remembered my teenage rage at the QotD movie, and I wasn't sure how I felt about them changing the time period and casting 'some old guy' as Daniel (sorry Eric! 🙈).

BUT THEN Jacob came on all, "Dear Mr. Molloy, did you know you can orgasm just from hearing a man's voice? Wanna finish what we started half a century ago?" and my head just about exploded!

This is the second interview?! They’re revisiting it 49 years later?! OMGGG, that's the most genius storytelling move in the history of storytelling! 😱

I watched ep2 right after and then desperately needed to yell about the show with other sickos. So I joined Twitter and started reading fic again (which I'd only really done when I was 17 and obsessed with that wizard school franchise), started writing fic, joined fic-themed group chats/Discords and made a Tumblr so I could (lovingly) yell at other fic writers.

And now I've published over 150k words in fic and there's IWTV fan art all over my house. 😂

So it was really the show that made me come back to stay. It's just thee best TV show of all time to me.

And as much as this fandom can be a shit show, it's really helped me stay sane while grappling with my long covid, which has left me very incapacitated in many other areas of my life.

Luce's headcanons

Asking me for my headcanons has the same effect as asking me for my favorite movies or songs in that it immediately makes me forget any headcanons I ever had. 😂

You're right that I write a lot of them into my fics, which are mainly me exploring my headcanons and asking myself what if...? I have a couple others, though I'm not sure these are really headcanons or more actual theories, though, so I apologize if this wasn't what you were looking for.

- I've mentioned this one before, but Louis and Lestat had a grand old time during their honeymoon phase between Louis getting turned and Louis almost eating Grace's baby. I think people tend to make too big a deal out of Louis being an unreliable narrator but it's a little too convenient how quickly he skips over those 6-7 years. I think he doesn’t like to think about how much fun he had with Lestat just having all the sex, getting super rich and eating whoever the fuck he wanted.

- Daniel isn’t going to give a single fuck about the ethics of killing people in order to survive once he finally becomes a vampire. We already know he’s selfish and a hypocrite. I can just see him fully ready to view all humans as savory inferiors once he’s no longer one of them.

- If show!Daniel ever met Marius, he would punch him in the face. 🤭

- Santiago is going to be SO jealous of Louis's relationship with Armand. I don't care if Santiago and Armand end up having zero homoerotic tension between them on screen, they're fucking to me.

- I'm also a Claudeline truther. Show!Claudia doesn’t need a parental figure the way book!Claudia does but she very much yearns for romantic love, and she did say Charlie was the last boy she'd ever love, and went after the woman when Lestat asked her if she wanted the Mr. or the Mrs. in ep7.

Kudos to anyone who made it all the way to the end of this answer! Your prize is getting to choose if I share:

A) A silly anecdote about that movie night I had with my sisters.

B) A shocking fact that might get me cancelled as an Armandaniel fic writer. 👀

(Though tbh, if you pick B, I'll probably still give you A for free.)

[artemiseamoon]

I’ve started reading Interview with the vampire (book) again because the show transported me back to falling inlove with the chronicles. It took me back to reading the book, for the first time, in the late 90s when I was an all black clothes / fishnet/ / fiery red hair/ silver moon boots wearin and lunchbox carrying hs freshman.

Yes the adaptation is different in many ways but I still am head over heels for it. The main thing that sold me is how the actors truly understand the characters and that is sooooo important to me. They’ve acted out and bought to life things I’ve imaged or read between Annes lines. These characters have lived with me since I was a teen and tho I was very hesitant about this adaptation, I’m so pleased and now I trust them with the material.

I could rant about this forever, so I’ll just try to keep it shortish. All the problematic and disturbing stuff aside, and there is lots of it, (as I grow older I just skim past that stuff and pretend it’s not there but I’m sure the books could be hard for people nowadays and those more immediately sensitive to things ) the vampire chronicles still mean so much to me.

One of my first friends in HS was this kid who dressed like lestat and modeled himself after him. I saw the guy and went “omg we must be friends”. I’m a shy person, even now I have a hard time initiating friendships, even if I really want to, but I did take the lead with that one. The girl who introduced me to the series was the only other quiet girl in class, the both of us sat in the back and would scribble in our notebooks with headphones on. One day she handed me her worn and frayed copy of IWTV and said “check it out, I think you’ll like it” -

Around the time I discovered the books, I was also figuring out my own sexuality and queerness. I’ve always been a vampire girl and used to watch the old black and white vamp films. These books came into my life at a time I really needed a world to escape to and this took me there. I have the whole collection and still go back and reread some of them. The Vampire Chronicles will always be important to me and hold a special place in my heart.

There are many things I love about the shows version. I want to wrap this up, so for now I’ll just make mention of Louis being a gay creole black man. As someone of direct Creole LA ancestry, it just touches me even deeper and makes the world of IWTV so much richer for me. I just - I love it. I can now understand things about Louis and connect to him in a way I couldn’t before. In fact, I like him better this way. Louis wasn’t my fav in the original but this Louis, Jacobs Louis, I love it and tho it’s different there are still essential parts that make Louis - Louis.

Ps: I have a few fav characters but I’ve always been a Lestat gal (even wrote lots of fanfic scribbled in notebooks that no one but me ever saw) and Sam - he did that shit. I’m so picky how all the characters are depicted but the most picky about my problematic complicated French vampire. And I bow to Sam- it’s a standing ovation from me. And Jacobs Louis, chefs kiss. Flowers! All of them really! I’m only undecided about Armand- we’ll see how I feel in S2.

[autistically-zoinked]

Sorry I'm actually a bitch and annoying so I can't leave this be.

I have read the books. Not all of them, but some of them. I own almost all of them because my mom has been a fan of Anne Rice since the 80's and has religiously bought every single one of her books until the late 90's or early 2000s. She got me into the vampire chronicles when I was about 11-12.

I'm well aware that this is fictional. I'm not against people writing morally grey or immoral characters. I'm not against making those characters likable or charming. I don't care if people like those characters. I enjoy "evil" characters very much. I personally draw the line at characters that have SA'd others but I seriously don't care if others like them. I think it's weird, but do what you do.

I just find it strange that multiple Marius fans, specifically Marius book fans, feel the need to defend him on a post about the show that they don't like. Especially since the show is somewhat very different from the book. Furthermore, you are making up things about a canon relationship because you are mad. Like sure, ship Daniel and Marius, have headcanons. But I just find it funny that you are using your headcanons to "prove" to everyone that you're right to ship them? You don't have to, you can just ship people.

You're infaltalising and demeaning a stranger that doesn't like a fictional character that canonically bought people and is implied to rape children. Again, like him all you want, but it's seriously odd behavior to act like you're owning me in a debate when said debate is over us having different opinions on characters from a book/show adaptation about campy queer vampires.

Daniel leaves Marius for Armand and Marius gets so mad about it that he leaves Daniel out of the mural. Again, ship whoever you want to ship, ignore canon all you want, I do it all the time, but I feel like you waving the book canon around doesn't really help your "Daniel and Marius are soulmates" argument that much.

Why are you gatekeeping the vampire chronicles/iwtv? Like as someone who has been in fandom spaces for a long time, I get so excited when there's a new adaptation or a show/movie gets a bigger platform. Even if I don't like a new adaptation, movie or season, it still makes me happy that new people are engaging with something I love. Of course, people disagreeing with me about the show/movie/book/adaptation is sometimes annoying, but overall I'm glad I get to talk to new people about a piece of media I like!

The first book came out in the 70's. It was immensely popular and has regained popularity through the show. Why are you acting like being a book reader is a niche club?

"just snuggles and comfort and love." God bless but that is not what happened.

If Marius shows up in s3, I need him to throw himself into the fire because he can't stop the constant telepathic shit-talking and hatred from Daniel.

[dhampirbf]

tvc is/could be a great example of criticizing media you enjoy if more people would actually criticize it.

@saint-molochaii has done a couple very insightful posts on racism in the series and ive done my own analyses of the way anne rice disregards what she's set up for her own characters in terms of what they've been through, may as well make a post on it.

(TW for mentions of sexual abuse, human trafficking, PTSD, etc)

i’ll start with armand since he’s such a prime example of it. anne created this character who should have quite severe PTSD. not only was he beaten as a younger child by his father, but he’s a CSA victim who was literally sold into sex slavery, for god’s sake. whether y’all want to admit it or not, marius sexually abused him too. he was, what, maybe 12 when marius bought him? and then, in the vampire armand, what reads to me as trauma-related hypersexuality is played off like something spicy for the reader’s enjoyment. gross.

i tried to read a little bit of the vampire armand purely so i could understand who he is as a character a little more and my god, it’s immediately clear anne does not know what she’s doing when she gives characters backstories like this, which is something no author should ever do! don’t give your characters backstories you can’t accurately write, especially when it deals with subject matter as heavy as armand’s. it’s just insulting and even triggering to folks who have gone through something similar. 

but like i said, this goes way past armand. depictions of trauma throughout the series are sorely lacking in concreteness. even lestat, our unreliable narrator no. 1, should be written with much, much more depth. he’s also another abused kid from a neglectful, harsh household. not to even mention that his turning was forced, something that would have been a hell of a lot more traumatic for him than it was actually written. and sure, we could argue that the way lestat treats people is a way his trauma manifests (something i agree with) but if that’s the only way we see it, i doubt it’s very intentional. anne just wanted to write an asshole character who routinely mistreats the people around him and have it go over totally fine. no thanks!

this is really just bad writing, but it’s also just kind of insulting for anne to use this intense level of trauma and traumatizing events as a hollow plot point that serves no actual purpose. none of this series takes itself seriously and it would all be a hell of a lot better if it did. i still don’t think i can push past the first chapter of TVA because i hate the way she wrote armand’s dynamic with marius. he was just a kid. 

anyway, we’re all well aware what a train wreck this series is. the racism is one of its more glaringly obvious issues, unfortunately. i would absolutely love to just... rewrite the entire thing from scratch but i doubt that’s feasible. instead, what remains of this fandom absolutely needs to think critically about what is portrayed in these books and have discussions accordingly. as it stands, we really don’t, except maybe within dms.

remember, folks, you can still love a series and call it out for what it is.

[aredhel85]

Blood and Regret

If you want to read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23368564/chapters/56444086#workskin

So I decided to write not only Marius’s POV, but also a third chapter about the following night, which should be up sometime this week :)

 ---

Blood and Regret

---

I knew I should feel satisfied.

After all these years the source of my pain was gone. Santino was dead.

But that feeling wouldn’t come.

The house was empty now; everyone was gone. The complete silence was almost unbearable and too many unwanted thoughts were crashing down on me.

Why had I acted like that? Why had I insisted on Santino’s death? Because of the fire? Because of the pain? I could have done it years ago then without asking for permission, without dragging Thorne into this.

Why now then?

The reasonable part in me knew perfectly well that I had lied to myself about the reason I had wanted Santino dead. After all, the feeling of needing revenge to find peace hadn’t been there until only some time ago.

When exactly?

Probably after I had given the blood to Amadeo’s children and seeing his reaction. The anger, the anguish. Again, I had made a horrible mistake. I hadn’t done what was best for him, but what I had considered best. I had made a decision that was not mine to make.

It was difficult for me to admit to mistakes and maybe, just maybe, it had been easier to blame Santino for all this pain, for taking him from me and making us almost strangers.

Maybe this was why Santino’s death only left me feeling empty.

I sat on the sofa, perfectly composed, not moving, just staring at the painting of Venice above the fireplace. I had painted it about two years ago.

Not the modern Venice, but the city as it had been when I had spent the few precious years with Amadeo there; the happiest years of the 2000 years of my existence.

Santino had taken it all away from me, but his death had not given it back.

Amadeo had been all too eager to leave, eager to get away.

Understandably so … after all I had hardly recognized myself tonight.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by a very quiet voice from balcony. Too quiet for a mortal to hear, but I understood every word and heard the bitterness behind them.

“Are you happy now?”

I looked up, although I already knew who it was. Amadeo looked at me with an unreadable expression on his face.

“I thought, you had left with the others. Why don’t you come inside?” The words sounded hollow in my own ears. I did not answer his question, because I didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? Santino was dead and how I felt about it did not change a thing.

“I was hesitant to remind you of your greatest mistake, the greatest crime against our kind.”

I flinched. I could hardly blame him. These had been my words, although he had not held them against me until now.

But I still saw him before me, in his black robes instead of the splendid clothes I had bought him when he had still been with me, devoted to the order, no longer considering that life could be different. If had made him a vampire later, if I had allowed him to mature a little more, maybe he would have been able to withstand. Instead he had become another coven leader who had followed Santino’s example.

“Amadeo, I …”

“Don’t call me that!” I closed my mouth. Except from the incident with Sybil and Benji, he had never spoken to me that way. But he wasn’t finished yet. “Amadeo died long ago. He died when he lay awake in his coffin until the rising sun forced him to sleep, thinking of you, grieving for you. He died with every nightmare of you burning.”

I was stunned. He had grieved for me? Well, of course I had expected that he had for a little while, but when I had seen him in the coven, he had seemed perfectly accustomed, content with where he was.

He came in and sat down in an armchair facing me. His next question took me off guard. “Are you disappointed?”

“In what?”

“In me.”

I wanted to say something, but I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t exactly say no without lying.  Still it hurt to see him so obviously distressed, although his expression hadn’t changed. The signs were subtle. He had become a master of hiding his true feelings.

Obviously, he did not expect an answer, but continued speaking right away, corrected himself. “No, I know you’re disappointed in me. I mean in the fact that I survived against your prediction. You told Lestat that you thought I would go into the fire or the sun sooner or later after the coven was destroyed. Are you disappointed I didn’t do it?”

I felt cold all over. How could he say that? I remembered the absolute dread, the anguish when I had thought him dead after the incident with Memnoch, the pure relief when I had found out he was still alive. “What? Of course not.” His only answer was a bitter smile, as if he didn’t believe me.  

“Ama … Armand, please, I know how all this must sound for you, but …”

Again, he cut me off, his voice so angry, and still, it shook slightly. Out of anger or hurt?

“Stop it! You know nothing! How would it sound to you, if your maker, who swore he would love you forever, called you his greatest crime?”

“That was merely because of your youth.”

“I was not that young, Marius! I look old enough to get along just fine! And I’m more than 500 years old now, I don’t think you should keep using my ‘youth’ as an excuse.” He got up and walked over to the window while I watched him. I had to admit, he wasn’t completely wrong. What I had done to him was nothing compared to what Lestat had done to Claudia. Amadeo had been 17 and fully aware of what I had been planning to do. Still, if he had been older …

“How would it sound to you, if your maker, who claimed he loved you, who you thought dead for the longest time, knew that you were in the hands of a satanic coven, and just decided to walk away?”

His voice was so full of pain that I got up without thinking and walked over to him. I raised my hand to reach out to him, but I saw that this gesture was unwanted and would not give him comfort, so I let it sink down again.

Instead I told him what I had told myself for so many years. A version of the truth I had made myself believe. “If you had wanted to leave, you could have. You could have saved yourself. I made you what you are, my blood is powerful, you were stronger than them.”

“Does that make you feel better about yourself? Or do you not even need such a reassurance because at that point you didn’t care anymore already?”

“Armand, I do care, and you know it.”

“Do I?” The tears he couldn’t hold back anymore stung, but even more so did his words. “Then tell me why, why would I have left? What was waiting for me outside of the coven? I thought you were dead, you were everything and I saw you burn, and my whole world went down in flames with you. Tell me, Marius, why should I have left and where would I have gone?”

Was this the only reason he had stayed with the coven? No, that would mean that what had happened with Sybil and Benji would pale in comparison to this betrayal. Automatically, without thinking, I once more tried to defend myself. “You could have started a new life. Lestat was alone, too, after Magnus …” I broke up. The moment the words had left my mouth I regretted them deeply.

I remembered Lestat’s portrayal of me. Marius, the wise father figure, knowing the answers to all the questions. Had I been a fool all along? Had I betrayed my beloved Amadeo in my pride and hurt? In my fear?

Fear of what? What could I have been afraid of?

But I knew it, didn’t I?

All these years I had told myself that Amadeo hadn’t wanted me anymore, that he had found a new home and family with the coven. That he could just have left if he had wanted to. I had even been disappointed that he hadn’t done it, and for the first time I allowed myself to face the injustice I had done to him. He had asked me the perfect question just a moment ago. Why should he have left? Why indeed …

Of course, I couldn’t read his thoughts, but I once thought I knew him through and through. How could I have been so wrong?

He had been through a horrible trauma, he had thought me dead, the coven members had certainly done their best to break his will. He had been alone and afraid and I had left him.

“Oh yes, Lestat.” His voice was dripping with bitterness, bitterness I deserved. It had been a completely different situation. Once more I had done him wrong by comparing his situation to Lestat’s. I shouldn’t have brought him into that. “So I was not strong enough for you, is that it? I was not as strong and bold as Lestat, was I? Maybe not. But when Lestat’s maker went into the flames he had known him for mere hours. But I loved you, Marius, with all I had in me. And then I saw you burn, I was grieving, I was alone, I didn’t care what happened to me. And at some point, I had just … I didn’t know … how to …” His voice broke and he stopped speaking. Tears were running freely now, but he did not allow himself to sob. He wasn’t a boy anymore, I had to stop treating him like one, talking down on him, making decisions for him.

Still, as I saw him before me, so broken, almost defeated, I wanted to hold him, as I had done so long ago.

I decided to just lay a hand on his arm instead, but he pushed me away and for once I respected this and did not try to touch him again.

Instead more excuses. “Armand, I couldn’t have known, I cannot read your mind, you know that. I had been hurt myself, I was disappointed to see you there …” What in the name of God was wrong with me? Couldn’t I just forget my cursed pride and admit a mistake? Beg for forgiveness? Tell him it wasn’t his fault, that I should have seen what was right before my eyes? That I should have understood what had held him there? That he hadn’t betrayed me? That I was sorry for everything I had said and for everything I had failed to do?

I opened my mouth, tried to find the words, but he spoke again before I could.

“They would have killed me, if I hadn’t joined them! I was still in shock from everything that happened, I was weak from them starving me. I couldn’t have fought them then if I had wanted to. But them killing me would have been preferable to you, wouldn’t it? You could have grieved for the sweet little martyr, painted his portraits and I would have been out of your life for good.”

“No!” I had not intended it to come out so loud and he flinched back. Still I did not stop, ignoring my own pain at his words, which were perfectly justified, now that I finally understood what he had indeed been through. It also didn’t matter that I was crying now, too, for the first time in front of anyone else for who knew how many years. My voice shook. “I never ever wanted you to die, Amadeo. In all my existence there was not a single moment in which I wanted you dead.” That was true, even in all my misguided disappointment in him for joining the coven I had never wanted him dead.

“Well, you have an interesting way of showing that.”

I was quiet for a moment. I knew that the only way to make him believe me was to be completely honest with him and share a truth I had only just discovered myself. As shameful as it was. “I was afraid, you know.”

He looked confused. “Afraid? Of them? The coven?”

“No. If I had known that you would have come with me, I would have fought them gladly. I was afraid you had forgotten me. Afraid you would join them in fighting me. I may have just let you kill me if the alternative was hurting you. That was what I was afraid of.” It seemed even more real, now that I had spoken it aloud.

He looked at me for a long time and the silence was so deafening that I wanted to say something just to break it, but he spoke first, his voice barely a whisper.

“I would have come with you. If I had known you were alive, if you had come, if I had seen you, I would have fought them all myself.”

Before I knew it, a very quiet sob escaped me together with fresh tears. Knowing how much pain I could have spared him, made the last bit of my pride vanish.  

“I will not insult you again by asking for your forgiveness. But I am sorry. For all the pain I caused you. For not being there when I should have been. For breaking all the promises I ever made you.”

He brushed his tears away, took a deep breath before speaking again. “So you told the whole world repeatedly – because this will be published too, you know – what a terrible and weak fledgling I am because you were afraid I’d reject you if you came to me? You didn’t come to me when I most needed you, because you were afraid I wouldn’t want you?” “It does sound ridiculous, doesn’t it?” What else could I say?

“So the Great Marius is not perfect after all.”

There was almost something like humour in his voice and a bitter laugh escaped me. “Believe me, I’m far from perfect. For what it’s worth, Armand, I am proud of you. You have come far after the theatre was gone, after Louis and you parted ways. You are not weak, I never thought you were.”

He looked me in the eyes, then sighed. “It means something. It means a lot.” It felt good to hear that, if only for the vague hope that it would give him the chance to heal. From old wounds and fresh ones I had inflicted on him tonight with my ignorant words. Without thinking I reached out a third time and this time he did not push me away when I touched his arm.  

“You’re terrible, you know. I came back to be angry with you”, he said instead.

“Which you have every right to.” “Indeed. I came here to tell you I hated you and I never wanted to see you again. I wanted to tell you to stay out of my life.”

It hurt to hear that, it was more than understandable, but it hurt nonetheless.

He must have seen my pain and rolled his eyes. “Originally. You can’t even let me hate you properly, can you?”

Now the humour in his voice was more obvious, but I hesitated to smile, let alone laugh. We looked at each other for a long moment, and then we both burst out laughing anyway. Short and maybe a little uncomfortable, but still a shared laugh.

“It is almost dawn.” I said this mostly to break the silence once more, but it was true anyway. It was too late for him to leave and find a safe place, if he didn’t want to sleep below ground. “Will you stay? It is too late to safely go somewhere else. You can leave tomorrow.” I hesitated, looking out of the window instead of at him, still ridiculously afraid of rejection, but it was that fear that had brought us to where we were. “Or you can stay. We can hunt together and then … if you want to … talk some more.”

“Do you want me to stay? Be honest, Marius, please. If you made this offer because you feel guilty now or any kind of obligation, please be honest this time. Please.” His voice was steady once more, almost calm. I admired him. He truly was not a boy anymore and the wish to get to know him as he was today grew in me.  

“No. I do feel guilt, that is true. But I see now that you don’t need me.” That was painful to admit. “I want you to stay. I want to get to know the person my boy has become. Pari passu this time.”

He looked at me thoughtfully, then nodded. “Alright then”, he said to my surprise. “Pari passu.” The slightest hint of a smile came to his lips. “I will not call you Master again.” “I would not ask for that. And you haven’t today. Marius is fine. I am no longer your master and you are no longer a boy.”

He looked as relieved as I felt. For once I had said the right thing.

“I will stay for the day and … tomorrow night.”

That was all I had hoped for, all things considered, and I couldn’t help but smile.

 --- The same dialogue as in the first chapter couldn’t be avoided, I hope it was still interesting to see Marius’s side of the story! I’m looking forward to writing the last chapter, until then I’ll be happy if you tell me what you think :)